What Is Better Butter Or Margarine?

What is better to use in a healthy diet, butter or margarine?

I can understand your confusion with all the debate about these two products! The facts can stand for themselves.

Butter

Let’s tackle the facts about butter first. Research from the American Heart Association and many noted Health Clinics tells us that butter has two cholesterol raising ingredients: dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. To understand these two ingredients better let’s look at them one at a time.

Dietary Cholesterol – Dietary Cholesterol can only be found in animal products! You will NOT find any cholesterol in a plant-based food or food product like margarine. As you know we where all created unique and some of us can eat a high cholesterol diet without it affecting are blood cholesterol one way or the other. On the other hand some of us just need to look at butter or margarine and our blood cholesterol levels are on the rise. It is recommended for a healthy diet we consume no more than 200 milligrams of cholesterol each day. Butter has 33 milligrams of cholesterol in one tablespoon!

Saturated Fat – Saturated Fat is our biggest enemy in any food product. Saturated Fats are solid at room temperature. Red meat is the largest carrier of saturated fat along with high-fat dairy products like butter. Coconut and Palm oils are also high is saturated fat. When we eat excessive amounts of saturated fats it increases our “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and “good” cholesterol (HDL). The problem is it doesn’t increase are “good” cholesterol enough to justify eating it. Eating saturated fats buts us at a higher risk for Heart Disease.

Research says a healthy amount of saturated fat is 10-15 grams per day. Considering one tablespoon of butter contains over 7 grams of saturated fat, as always it is better in moderation or not at all.

Margarine

Margarine COULD also clog up the arteries. The problem with margarine has always been the levels of Trans Fat. Trans Fat is not what we would call all natural; it is largely a man-made product. Trans Fats are made with a process call Hydrogenation. This is when Hydrogen is added to vegetable oils, making the oil more solid and stable. This process lends to fact that margarine is less prone to spoil compared to our dairy products, like butter. Trans Fats when eaten in large amounts not only increase the “bad” cholesterol, they tend to also lower the “good” cholesterol. As of date there are no standard intakes of Trans Fat, but one tablespoon of stick margarine contains 3 grams of trans fat and 2 grams of saturated fat.

With all that said there is still light at the end of the tunnel. Margarine manufacturers have wised up and are reducing the amount of trans fats in their products to almost nothing. Now at your local super market you can buy margarine with less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving! With these low levels, the manufacturers are allowed to claim “trans fat free or zero-trans fat” labels. They do this by switching their first ingredient from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil to water or liquid vegetable oil. This is why more people are making the healthier choice of tub or liquid margarines over the stick margarine because the trans fats are almost cut is half in the tub and liquid margarines!

So, margarine in the trans free tub or liquid is recommended over butter.